kirk minihane

Shades of Jacoby Ellsbury in the Jay Cutler saga

What, really, gives you or me the right to question the toughness of Jay Cutler ... or any professional athlete, for that matter? And make no mistake: I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to this stuff. Me, Kirk Minihane, the same guy who already in 2011 has, A) almost teared up while pleading with his dentist to knock him out before a root canal, and B) spent three days on the living room floor after blowing out my back shoveling snow for 35 minutes. Why have I joined you — about 95 percent of NFL players not on the field Sunday (active or retired) and seemingly every member of the media (I'm starting to really hate Twitter, it's really OK to sometimes just take a pass on an issue) — in blasting Cutler for not playing in the second half of the NFC title game.

You name it, I said it or thought it: No guts; if he's able to stand he should be on the field; I didn't see the kind of hit that knocks a real QB out of the game (See: Lawrence Taylor on Theismann, or Bernard Pollard); it looks like he doesn't care; typical Cutler, you'd never see this from (fill in the name of your favorite "tough" quarterback); doesn't he realize what this will mean to his legacy; how many chances do you get to play in a Super Bowl. Same things we were all saying or thinking is my point.

A day -- and an MCL sprain announcement -- later and it's hard not to feel, well, just dirty about the whole thing. I feel like this is maybe a teaching moment for all of us. If a guy says he's hurt, he's hurt. We don't know anything about the threshold for pain of any individual athlete, so let's just leave it alone and give him the benefit of the doubt. Agreed? Ready to move on?

Sounds great as a theory, but what happens when Jacoby Ellsbury goes on the DL in April?

You get what I mean. Maybe it's just part of being a fan or being in the media -- there is always going to be the urge to overreact when it looks like a guy isn't "gutting it out."

(And this is Ellsbury all over again, but on a national scale. People who don't know anything about anything coming to the conclusion that a guy is soft because it's the easiest way to define him. And for all I know Ellsbury is soft and didn't play because Scott Boras told him not to. And for all I know Ellsbury was spitting up blood every day last year but still was dying to play. But I have zero proof either way, just like everyone else. But it's become more important to run with a story than to figure out what the truth is.)

And I mean "looks" because, again, we have no clue. Let's consider Jay Cutler for a moment. This is a guy who has played 16, 16, 16 and 15 games the last four regular seasons. He takes a ton of hits -- he was sacked nine times in a loss to the Giants in October and 57 times on the season. He took a beating in Denver and while in college at Vanderbilt. Oh, and P.S.? Cutler tried to play after being injured on Sunday. So why the near-universal vitriol and immediate assumption that he lacked the twins to stay on the field?

Because he made the cardinal mistake: He looked bad on television.

He needs a PR polish, that's all. Lesson No. 1: If you are hurt in a playoff game, do not walk off the field. Wait for the cart (Philip Rivers on Monday: "Me personally, I’d have to have been taken off in a cart.") I would also suggest burying your head in a towel and staying in the locker room. That seems to always appease the fan base and media. Standing -- and, gasp, walking ('cuz we all know that's the same as running away from a 260-pound linebacker) -- on the sideline while Todd Collins is throwing knuckleballs to rival any ever tossed by a Niekro brother just isn't going to play in the world of instant news.

And that's really why this went from a story to A STORY on Sunday. Fellow NFL players ripped Cutler on Twitter and TV. Maurice Jones-Drew -- who missed the last two games of the regular season, games the Jaguars needed to make the playoffs -- called Cutler a "quitter," just one of a host of active players who went after the QB. The retired crew was also well represented, led by Deion Sanders, who basically missed two SEASONS with a turf toe injury and probably has fewer career tackles than Jay Cutler. Sanders tweeted the following: "Folks I never question a players injury but I do question a players heart. Truth." I have never had the desire to hear Deion Sanders' opinion on anything, but if the mood struck and I needed a fix I think I'd probably stay away from anything to do with toughing it out through an injury.

But the larger point is this: The story gained legitimacy when players broke the code and started talking. And you know what? Same thing with Ellsbury last year. Until Kevin Youkilis opened his mouth and gave fans something to point to Ellsbury and his (admittedly slow) recovery from broken ribs was just fodder for talk show shots with no proof that it was possibly a real issue in the clubhouse. Do you think Youkilis has any idea as to the extent of Ellsbury's injury? Of course not.

Look, it's possible that Philip Rivers or Tom Brady or Brett Favre would have stayed in the game if they had suffered the exact same injury as Cutler. And maybe Youkilis (who has never played 150 games in a season) would have played more than 18 games with four broken ribs. Some guys are tougher than others. I know that.

All this doesn't answer the question posed at the top. Why do we do it? I suppose it's pretty simple, when you look at it. The reason that you and I aren't NFL quarterbacks is that we can't throw a football 60 yards on a string, or evade blitzing safeties to run for a first down. Oh, and we aren't 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds. Those are the reasons. But if we had those things, well, surely we'd have all the intangibles. We would never leave a playoff game with that kind of injury, because we would be winners, right?

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get my heating pad. Guess I'm too tough for my own good -- you'll never see me ask out of shoveling snow.

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